Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is done cozying up to Microsoft — now he's BFFs with Amazon

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff further distanced himself from Microsoft on Thursday, after cozying up to the company during the past two years.

Benioff has a new friend now: Amazon.

During Salesforce quarterly earnings call on Thursday, Benioff downplayed a question about Microsoft's growing presence in the CRM software market by simply turning up the rhetoric about sales.

"We look at Microsoft, we sold more CRM software this quarter than Microsoft sold in the last decade. It's just empirical," Benioff said during the call with investors.

Of course, we won't know for sure if that's a true statement. Salesforce had another strong quarter, recording $2.14 billion in revenue, mostly from the CRM space. Microsoft doesn't break out sales from its Dynamics CRM business, but it is believed to be much smaller and a distant fourth in the market.

Salesforce

But what's most striking is Benioff's changed tone in his comments about Microsoft. Just last year, in Salesforce's 2015 third quarter earnings call, Benioff said he's "excited" about Microsoft, saying he had a "great relationship" with the company. Even during this year's July quarter, he said he's done "great work" with Microsoft.

But that's all over now.

Benioff made it clear earlier this week that he's no longer a fan of the "new" Microsoft under CEO Satya Nadella. Salesforce has historically had a contentious relationship with Microsoft, but the two companies suddenly became good friends after Nadella was named CEO in 2014, although the bromance seems all but over now.

Instead, Benioff has turned to Amazon this year, striking a number of major deals. In May, Salesforce announced a $400 million deal to use AWS, while Amazon rolled out Salesforce's software company-wide. Salesforce said Amazon added even more Salesforce services this quarter, during the call with investors.

"Amazon is a great win of the quarter as well. We formed a strategic relationship in Q1 as you all know, and in Q3 our relationship has expanded, and they added even more services throughout the company," Salesforce President and COO Keith Block said.